Folding machine



March 31, 1936. M, J, BERGEN FOLDING MAcHNE Filed Dec. 22, 1935 a Bw@)JMM 5') rte Patented Mar. 3l, 1936 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE FOLDINGMACHINE Application December 22, 1933, Serial No. 703,596

2 Claims.

This invention relates to folding the margin of pieces of sheet materialwhich require the application of heat and to a heating device which maybe used to apply radiant heat to selective localities of shoe parts.

In the manufacture of boots and shoes, it is customary to fold certainmargins of certain parts, for example the front and top margins ofquarters and the rear margins of tips, in order to produce finishededges thereon. Two procedures are in common use. In the first, themargin of the shoe part is skived, a coating of cement is applied to themargin, and then the margin is folded. In the other, a narrow bindingstrip carrying a coating of cement is served along the edge of the shoepart, and then the strip is folded about the edge of said part. Thus inboth cases the cement-coated margin of a piece of Work is folded overupon the body portion thereof. In some instances, a cement is used whichis normally not sticky but is adapted to become sticky upon beingheated.

The practice of employing a thermoplastic cement has been usedprincipally on the latter of the two kinds of Work mentioned above,namely on soi-called French binding, and Various means have beenemployed to apply heat to the coating of cement, for example, directingupon the coating a blast of hot air as described in United StatesLetters Patent No. 1,661,572, granted March 6, 1928, upon an applicationfiled in the name of Clifford K. MacDonald, or providing a heatedpresser foot over which the coated binding is drawn, as disclosed inUnited States Letters Patent No. 1,850,979, granted March 22, 1932, uponan application led in the name of George E. Williamson.

In the illustrated construction, there is provided, in combination witha. folding machine, a device for heating the coating of cement on themargin of the Work which comprises a source of radiant heat the rays ofwhich are received upon one end of a conductor capable of delivering therays from its other end, substantially Without loss, upon a selectedportion of the work. Also as illustrated, this conductor is a fusedquartz rod, which transmits the rays by internal reflection, the otherend of said rod being located to deliver these rays upon thecement-coated margin of the work prior to the folding over of the marginthereof. Owing to the fact that the fused quartz rod remainssubstantially cool and that it transmits the heat rays substantiallyWithout loss even though it may be curved to some extent, theapplication of heat may be restricted to the selected locality of theWork without the presence near the Work, in a position objectionable tothe operator, of any hot member such as the nozzle of a hot airapparatus or the heated presser foot of a folding machine. 5

Referring to the accompanying drawing,

Fig. l is a front elevation of a portion of a Inachine in which thepresent invention is embodied, and

Fig. 2 is an end elevation of parts of the ma- 10 chine showing a pieceof work in process of being operated upon.

The folding machine and its mode of operation will be only brieflydescribed. A piece of Work, for example a piece of leather |00 to whicha 15 strip of binding 200 is attached, is fed intermittently away fromthe observer, as viewed in Fig.

i, or to the left, as Viewed in Fig. 2, over a Work support 5, beingheld down upon the work support by a presser foot provided with a smallroller 9. The margin of the work, in the illustrated case the bindingstrip, is bent up over the edge of the presser by a folding nger Il toform the fold, said fold being then completed and pressed by a hammer I3which grips the Work and feeds 25 it intermittently. The folding machineherein shown is or may be substantially the same as the machine shown inLetters Patent of the United States No. 2,014,469, granted September 17,1935, on an application led in the name of John B. Coffey, and will notbe further described, since any suitable folding machine may be employedThe binding strip has -a coating of thermoplastic cement which may besoftened and rendered sticky by being heated. For this purpose there isprovided a source of radiant heat in the form of a metallic helix I5which forms part of an electric circuit, and a rod of fused quartz I1arranged to receive heat rays from the source of heat and to deliverthem to the work in advance of the folding mechanism. rihe helix iscarried as shown by a metallic reflector i9 to which is attached thelarger end of a generally conical rehector 2l, the upper end of thefused quartz rod i 'l being mounted in a sleeve 23 which is clamped 45to the small end of the reflector 2 I, both reflectors being covered bya layer of heat insulating material 25. This Whole device is adjustablysupported on an upright rod 2l' carrie-d by the upper arm 29 of theframe of the folding machine by 50 means of two horizontal rods 3i, 33,the hubs of which are slidably and rotatably mounted on the upright rod,being held in adjusted positions respectively by thumb-screws 35, 31which are threaded through the hubs and engage the up- 55 right rod 2l.At its outer end the lower rod 3| is pivoted at 39 to an ear 4I rivetedto the reflector 2l, the outer end of the upper rod 33 carrying abracket 43 which is adjustably fastened, to an ear 45 riveted to thereiiector I9, by a thumb-screw 41, the stem of which passes through aslot 49 in the bracket and is threaded into the ear. The heating devicemay thus be adjusted vertically about the vertical axis of the rod 21when the screws 35, 31 have been loosened, and may be tilted about theaxis of the pivot 39 after the thumb-screw 41 has been loosened. It isthus possible to locate the lower end of the fused quartz rod I1 inproper position with respect to the work. It should also be understoodthat the fused quartz rod may have curved portions if such curvedportions are necessary or desirable in order to locate its lower end inproper position.

The work passes through the machine from right to left, as viewed inFig. 2, the fused quartz rod delivering heat rays upon the coating ofcement on the margin of the work as the work is fed, so that the coatingi's progressively rendered sticky and will cause the subsequentlyfolded-over margin Vto adhere to the body portion of the work. TheVquartz rod transmits to the work the heat rays received upon its upperend and at the same time, since it remains substantially cool,interferes in no way with the manipulation of the work by the operator.

Although the invention has been described as used in the heating of aparticular piece of work during a particular operation, it should beunderstood that the invention is not limited in the scope of itsapplication to use on the particular work nor to use with the particularmachine which have been shown and described.

Having described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secureby Letters Patent of the United States is:

1. A machine for folding a piece of flexible work having on its margin acoating of cement which is normally not sticky but may be renderedsticky by heat having, in combin-ation, mechanism for feeding the workand for folding the margin, and means for heating the coating of cement,said last-named means comprising a source of radiant heat, and a memberadapted to transmit heat rays by internal reection having its deliveryend adjacent to the coating Vof cement and its receiving end located inposition to receive heat rays from the source of heat.

2. A machine vfor folding a piece of eXible work having on its margin acoating of cement which is normally not sticky but may be renderedsticky by heat having, in combination, mechanism for feeding the workand for folding the margin, and means for heating the coating of cement,said l-ast-named means comprising a fused quartz rod having its deliveryend located in position to direct radiant heat upon the coating'ofcement, and means for directing radiant heat upon the other end of therod.

' MARTIN J. BERGEN.

